Electronic Billing
Electronic billing, or e-billing, is currently one of the fastest growing internet functions. Using e-billing, businesses can send out statements, invoices and dunning letters electronically via a safe download area rather than having them delivered by post.
This increases the efficiency of the billing and invoicing process for billing corporations, financial consumers and their customers. E-billing is finically beneficial for businesses as they avoid the costs of printing and posting such documents. Equally the practice of e-billing is environmentally friendly as decreases paper use.
The ability to view previous statements and invoices online is another advantage to e-billing as it removes the need for such statements to occupy space in the home or office.
Electronic Bill Presentment and Payment (EBPP)
This is a type of electronic billing whereby a company will bill its customers and collect payments using the Internet. This allows bills or invoices to be paid automatically, and from the home, so e-billing is often more convenient for the customer. Should a bill not be paid on time, EBPP means that dunning letters can also be sent to customers electronically. Dunning letters being the letters sent to chase payment of an invoice.
Electronic billing can be biller-direct, where a customer will make payment using a feature on a specific company website. Often, the company receiving payments will outsource another company, whose speciality is electronic billing and the technology involved, to set this system up for them. Alternatively, e-billing allows the customer can make bill payments via another site, for example, that of their bank. Here, the customer is able to electronically make bill payments to multiple companies who they have indexed to receive payments.
Online Banking
The popularity of electronic billing has accompanied the proliferations of online banking, with which it is now a common feature. Bank depositors are able to transfer money from their own account to that of a retailer (thus paying their e-bill) from their home computer, speeding up the payment process. In addition, the depositor is able to make such payments on-line from any computer anywhere, or can schedule payments to be made only on certain days each month.
E-billing Security
The security of documents such as bills, invoices and statements is greatly improved when they are sent electronically using e-billing. Unlike a paper document which risks interception or damage, access to an invoice sent electronically is given solely to the intended recipient via their email inbox. To access this email (which then contains a web-link to the invoice) the customer must give their email address and a private password. Of equal importance, the company sending the invoice is notified once the invoice has been viewed; thus protecting them from clients attempting to avoid invoice payment.
The risk of document loss is also reduced using e-billing, as it is possible for a blind carbon copy (Bcc) of any electronic invoice or document sent to be returned to the sender at the time of sending. This acts as confirmation that the invoice has successfully been delivered to a client e-mail inbox.
Invoice and Statement History
A final significant feature of electronic billing is the ability to electronically store an archive of previous statements, invoices and dunning letters that a client has received. This information will be held in a file attached to the client's name or their company's name and can be easily electronically sorted, searched and retrieved if necessary.
